So thanks to a commenter I discovered the latest Accuweather long range forecast from Canadian meteorologist Brett Anderson. His predictions for the Summer?

Mean pattern for the week of July 20-26

–A fairly dry, warm pattern across most of British Columbia.

The week of July 27-Aug 2

–A very warm and generally dry pattern from southern BC through the Pacific Northwest.

The week of Aug 3-9

–Temperatures above normal in the Pacific Northwest through BC, with rainfall below normal across this region, but there will be the usual share of afternoon showers and thunderstorms in the mountains.

So there you have it. Looks pretty good to me :) Hope everyone gets a little time off to enjoy it.

Oh, and before I go. To all my French speakers out there (I know I have at least one!) Vive la France! Today, July 14 is their National Holiday. I’ll be humming the Marseilles today in your honour.

We finally got some real rain over the past few days! Might stave off water restrictions in Port Alberni for a few more days than otherwise might have been the case.

I also wanted to post an update which included a little ditty about Arctic Sea Ice. Two important bits of news out. First the Monthly report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado is out and while this past June wasn’t as bad as it could have been.. the trend downward for ice cover continues.

The more disturbing trend though, noted in this NASA paper out today, is reduction in ice thickness over the past 30 years. We are at all time lows in terms of multi-year sea ice.

The trend over the last 5 years alone has been a loss in volume of 900 cubic kilometers, or roughly two Lake Eries, a year.

Wow.

And hey, if you’re around on Saturday, come out to the City Wide Garage Sale! Yours truly will be participating at 3854 6th Ave. you can see the full list of participating merchants here with addresses here. There will also be people at that Walmart parking lot.

Here’s a Google Map of all the Sales happening!